U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to open in Denver

There is no word yet on where the office will be located. Governor John Hickenlooper confirmed that officials from the US Department of Commerce will begin looking for a site in the coming weeks.

Officials hope to open the new office in mid 2013.

Winning the expansion has been in the works for six years, and once it's up and running, it will likely pump more than $400 million into the local economy and bring with it hundreds of high-paying jobs.

The office will open with 400 employees and ramp up to 1,000.Roughly half of those jobs will involve clerical, information technology, and administrative work.

The other half will be patent examiners.

"You need a science or technical background," said Tom Clark with the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation. "You've got to be smart."

The patent office hires specialists in an array of fields from physics to pharmaceuticals, from computers to textiles.

Research skills are also key. The job requires digging through an extensive database to ensure that new patents are not granted for existing inventions.

Denver's infrastructure and existing tech industry helped to win the new patent office, but Colorado politicians also played a full-court press.

A long, intense lobbying effort reached its peak in May when President Obama visited Denver for a fundraiser.

Riding in the President's car, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock listened to the President talking to Governor Hickenlooper about basketball.

"I interrupted the President," Hancock said. "I care about the NBA, but right now how do we get the patent office to Denver, Colorado?" he asked of the President.

Governor Hickenlooper echoed the question and the President decided to call the commerce secretary.

"If this had gone somewhere else, a lot of people would have been pointing fingers and saying 'well, why is it in this city and not in Denver?'" Hickenlooper said. "We would have had a hard time answering that. It belonged in Denver. Thank goodness it's going to be in Denver."

All nine of Colorado's members of Congress signed on to the bipartisan effort. The patent office is paid for by its own application fees.

They insist that the application filed by the business community is what ultimately won the day.

Denver beat out applications from New Mexico, Utah, Nevada and Washington state.